Vol. 3 Chapter 13 - Constant Change is here to stay. (1950's)

My mother’s ideal would have been to live the life of a gypsy: free from the restrictions of getting on with neighbours, she would have spent her life travelling the open road. In fact, she and dad once bought a Ford Transit van that had been converted into a motor-home. However, her dreams of wandering the by-ways of England were cruelly smashed when one day it rained. The previous owner had not done a very good job of converting the van. The windows leaked!

In 65 years my mother moved 47 times - whether my father wanted to or not. She was totally oblivious to the effect that constant moving might have on her children, their education and their friendships, or on dad’s employment.  She had got the packing down to a fine art.  Sometimes she didn’t even pack, she would leave things behind and start afresh somewhere else.

Married life began 13^th September 1948 at 1 Dorset Road.  In post war Britain this was a multi-occupancy terrace house. My parents lived on the ground floor; above lived John and Gladys O’Leary and and on the top floor, James and Alice Reese.

By the time I was born in July 1949, my parents had moved upstairs to where the O'leary's had lived. (No. 2)

A year later they had moved a few hundred yards away to the upstairs rooms of 27 Meadow Place (No. 3). Again they shared a house, the other occupants being Gladys Radley and Denis and Joan Burke. That same year, Gladys got married and her new husband George moved in and Denis and Joan moved out of the ground floor rooms. One day my father came home from work to discover that my mother, without telling him, had moved all their possessions into the now vacated Burkes’ rooms. (No. 4)

 

During this time my Grandfather Napper, Uncle Eddy, Auntie Vera and Uncle Reg were rehoused into the newly built flats of Basil House.  These were ultra-modern two bedroom flats (yes 4 of them in two bedrooms) boasting a balcony, separate toilet and a bathroom. They also contained the unheard of luxury of having a built-in refrigerator.

In February 1952 my father resigned from his Job as a railway booking clerk at Waterloo Station and joined the accounts department of Southwestern Surrey and Suburban District of the London Electricity Company. That same year my parents moved into my grandfather’s flat. (No. 5) Where dad’s siblings went, we don’t know. My mother’s sister, Eileen lived in the flat opposite, her front door just feet from ours.

By then, my grandfather knew he was dying but he clung on to life; knowing that my mother was pregnant, he wanted to see his new grandchild. My baby sister was born 22^nd March 1953. My grandfather died on 6^th April 1953. My parents and their 2 children had, for the first time, their own home with their own front door.

 

In 1956 my father resigned from The London Electricity Company and joined American Express, Haymarket, London. For some unknown reason my parents moved from Basil House to the block of flats opposite: 7 Conrad House (No. 6). It made no sense 7 Conrad House was identical to 12 Basil House.

Later that year my parents moved again, this time swapping flats with mum’s cousin, Peggy Maynard. My parents left behind the modern, light and airy flats of Vauxhall, for a dark, dingy, Dickensian tenement north of the River to Turner Houser, (No. 7). The flats were built on the site of the former Millbank Penitentiary

The flat had a living room, off of which were two small bedrooms and a very small kitchenette. There was no bathroom or toilet. The communal toilet was situated in the corridor outside our front door. These have all now been converted into one-bedroomed luxury fully plumbed apartments. Back then bath times were a tin bath in front of the coal fire. Pans of boiling water were carried through from the kitchenette. On one bath night my mother spilt a whole pan of boiling water over my young sister badly scalding her.  She was rushed to hospital in an ambulance accompanied by a police car with flashing lights and all the while screaming at my mother "You did this to me".  Still, it wasn’t all bad, visiting her in the Westminster Children’s Hospital meant that I was able to play on the life size rocking horse and eat cream buns in the cafeteria.

But it wasn’t all play and buns at the Hospital. I once got a clockwork toy car stuck in my hair, my golden locks tightly entangled in the mechanism. Unable to extricate it herself, my mother took me to the hospital. To avoid embarrassment, mine or hers I don’t know, she took me on the bus with a blanket over my head.

During this time by father supplemented his salary from American Express by washing cars in the evening at the now infamous Dolphin Court in Pimlico. At one point more than 100 MPs and Lords rented flats in the square. Soviet spy John Vassall was living in the square when he was arrested for treason. Winston Churchill's daughter, Sarah, was evicted from the square for hurling gin bottles out of her window. 

In 1958 we left behind inner city London for a 2-bedroomed flat in Hayward Gardens, Putney (No. 8). We genuinely thought we had moved to Paradise, a garden of Eden. Gone were the smog and soot of a concrete jungle. We had fresh air, green grass, trees, wild birds and Putney common to roam through at leisure.  



But this idyll soon came crashing to an end. A year later, we upped and moved again, this time to Slough (No. 9). The best way to see Slough is through your rear view mirror.

  

The poet Sir John Betjemen put it this way,

Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!

Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air-conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.

Mess up the mess they call a town-
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years.

And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears:

And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.

But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.

It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead

And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.

In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.

Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.